Tuesday Travel Classics: The Majestic Hotel

Our Travel Classics feature takes us back to the United States’ Pacific Northwest this weekend for a stay at The Majestic Inn and Spa in Anacortes, Washington. . .

Telling friends that we celebrated The Scout’s birthday a few weeks ago at this charmer in the middle of the Historic District in Anacortes, a city about an hour and a half north of Seattle, their response is the same: 

“Anacortes? Isn’t that where you catch the ferry to the San Juans and Victoria, B.C.?”

One and the same! 

But if you’ve only driven to the ferry, you’ve missed some great Northwest history and a true Travel Classic hotel.

One of our favorite places in this wood-framed charmer -- that houses a spa, bar, restaurant and meeting rooms -- is its teeny-tiny top where there’s a surprisingly spacious sitting room for the use of guests.  From its comfy chairs there’s a 360-degree view that takes in a bit of the San Juan islands, Guemes Channel, the town’s sprawling commercial district and its Cap Sante Marina.

The hotel building dates back to the late 1800’s; a time during which the town was booming with hopes of being the transcontinental railroad terminus.  Staff members told us that this enormous building was moved to its present location in the early 1900’s from one several blocks away. The move, done by horse teams pulling the building on log skids, spanned an entire summer.

Guest rooms have been modernized and an elevator carries guests to all but the top, the fifth, floor these days. 

We’d opted for one of the favored corner rooms on the top floor which required climbing a flight of stairs. . .but the room and its deck made that climb worth it.

(It was too cold to sit outside but we often stepped outside to enjoy the view from our perch high above town. That’s our deck just on the roof line.)


Our room, one of 21 in the hotel, had a sitting area and wet bar with small refrigerator, television, and en suite bath.

A French press coffee maker was provides and the front desk provided as many packets of fresh ground coffee as we wanted.

We paid $147, plus tax, for a mid-week stay in February. Rates on this room can go as high as $309 in mid-summer (and these corner view rooms go fast).

The hotel’s popularity has prompted the construction of an annex, scheduled to be opened in late Spring 2013.  We suspect those rooms will also be luxurious, but we’ll be opting for the old building every chance we get.

What's there to do in Anacortes? Come back on the weekend when our travels will take us out and about in this charming waterfront town and nearby Guemes Island  in our WAWeekend series.

If You Go:

The Majestic Inn and Spa, 419 Commercial Ave., Anacortes, 98221, toll-free 877-370-0100, www.majesticinnandspa.com

Have a Travel Classic to recommend? Use the comment section below or if you’ve received this in your inbox, send us a quick email. Happy Travels and thanks for stopping by today!

Travel Tuesday: ‘Trusted Travelers’ Down Under

The United State’s Trusted Travelers Program* just got better!

(*aka Global Entry/PreCheck that we've told you about in earlier posts – click the blue link above) 

First, I must tell you that we used the Trusted Traveler fast-track Pre-check lines at Seatac and  Honolulu airports in January.
And what a snap!

Laptop and our quart-sized bag of liquids stayed in the carry-on bag; we wore our shoes and jackets. There was no one else in line . . . were through security in less than five minutes! 



Trusted Travelers  ‘Down Under’

Note: The following information is from an email we received last week from the Department of Homeland Security:

“Visiting Australia is now easier than ever for U.S. Trusted Travelers. Late last year, Australian Customs and Border Protection opened up access to its automated border processing system, SmartGate, to U.S. Trusted Travelers. Now when you arrive in Australia, you can bypass the passport processing queues and self-process using an ePassport¹.


How does it work?

SmartGate uses facial recognition technology and biometric data to perform the customs and immigration checks usually conducted by an Australian Customs and Border Protection officer. You can still choose to talk to an Australian Customs and Border Protection officer if you prefer, but as long as you have a U.S. ePassport¹, you have the option to use SmartGate.

Can I use SmartGate?
You can use SmartGate provided you are:

• flying into Australia;
• 16 years or older; and
• traveling on a valid U.S. ePassport¹.

There is no additional enrollment process to participate in SmartGate and it is open to all U.S. citizen Trusted Traveler members enrolled in the Global Entry, NEXUS, and SENTRI programs.
Tips on using SmartGate in Australia


Australian Customs and Border Protection has produced a new fact sheet to help US Trusted Travelers use SmartGate with confidence. The fact sheet is available at: http://www.globalentry.gov/pdfs/FAQs_for_US_Trusted_Travelers.pdf.


Australian Customs and Border Protection would like to hear from you

Have you tried SmartGate in Australia? Australian Customs and Border Protection would like to hear about your experience. Please email your comments, suggestions or any questions about SmartGate to information@customs.gov.au.
For more information on using SmartGate in Australia, visit www.customs.gov.au/smartgateor www.globalentry.gov.
¹ For more information on ePassports, please visit http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_2498.html”

And TravelnWrite wants to know if you’ve tried Global Entry yet?  What have been your experiences? If you are a subscriber and want to leave a comment, click the blue TravelnWrite link or the headline on the article to reach the blog's comment section.

Arizona Gems: Tubac and Tumacacori

Road trips never let us down.  There is always some wonderful place to be discovered when setting out; sometimes by pure happenstance and other times by recommendations of friends.  The latter is what took us to Tubac and Tumacacori, Arizona.

Our Tucson friends, Jeanie and Hal, graciously loaded us up and headed out on a spectacular day of discovery (for us) last week. And while you are trying to get your tongues twisted around those names let me tell you where you can find them. . .

The two are only about three miles apart, an hour south of Tucson along Interstate 19  not far from the Mexico/US border.  They are bordered to the east by Madera Canyon.

Tubac, established in 1752, is today “Where Art and History Meet” according to its promotional materials. The town’s Presidio of San Ignacia de Tubac was the first military base in Arizona and  first European settlement.  In 1860 it was the largest town in Arizona.

Today the small town is an art-lovers paradise.   Galleries and showrooms, studios and retail shops fill the old adobe and wood-frame buildings. Fine art to Mexican made trinkets are to be found as you wander through the streets and plazas.


The streets and shops were pretty empty on the morning of our visit – quite a change from when they swell with the crowds who flock to its many special annual events like October’s Anza Days, December’s Luminaria Nights, February’s Car Nuts Show and also in February, the Tubac Festival of the Arts – one of the oldest art fairs in the southwest, featuring musicians and artists from throughout the United States and Canada.


For history buffs, the town’s Presidio State Historic Park, site of the oldest Spanish military outpost in Arizona,  includes the 1885 School, a visitors center and museum, picnic grounds and the Juan Bautista de Ana National Historic Trail.

While the town has numerous eateries as well, it was a place ‘just down the road’ that Jeanie and Hal recommended and are we ever glad they did!

Wisdom’s Café opened its doors along the old Nogales Highway back in 1944. Like so many mom-and-pop businesses, it closed  those  doors in 1979 when the newly opened Interstate 19 diverted traffic.  By 1980 it had come back to life with the help of owners’ Howard and Petra Wisdom’s adult children. . .it’s now a ‘destination’ place and has been written up in the New York Times.  (I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the chicken in the parking lot.)

Next time we’ll eat dessert first, here because we had no room for Wisdom’s World Famous Fruit Burro, a crispy burrito filled with your choice of fruit and topped with vanilla ice cream.

Then it was a bit further south for a stop at the Santa Cruz Chili and Spice Co. and Ranch Museum where we stocked up on packages, jars and boxes of every kind of spice imaginable – especially the chili’s.

We didn’t have time to visit  Abe’s Old Tumacacori Bar, where octogenarian Abe Trujillo has been pouring cool ones for more than 60 years at his family’s bar.  We missed the moose head and some 1,000 empty whiskey bottles that are on display but we know there’ll be another visit to this area  one day and hopefully Abe will still be pouring. . .

IF YOU GO:

Tubac: Tubac Chamber of Commerce, 50 Bridge Road, 85646, phone 520-398-2704, www.TubacAZ.com

Wisdom’s Café, 1931 E. Frontage Rd., Tumacacori, AZ 85640, 520-398-2397 (1/2 mile north of the Tumacacori Mission and three miles south of Tubac).  www.wisdomscafe.com

Wisdom’s also has a vacation rental casita across the street from the restaurant.  We took a look and it is beautifully decorated in Southwest style. Rates: $79 – $99 per night, two-night minimum. For information:  520-991-9652 or email: celeste@wisdomscafe.com

Santa Cruz Chili and Spice Co., 1868 E. Frontage Road, Tumacacori, Arizona, 86640, 520-398-2591, www.santacruzchili.com for hours.

Abe’s Old Tumacacori Bar, 1900 E. Frontage Road, 520-398-1227, open daily from 2 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Arizona: Falling in love with an old charmer

The old charmer had won our hearts more than a year ago and back then, we’d barely met. This year we spent the night together. . .it only solidified the love affair.

The High Plains Drifters wound our way through the Pacific Northwest, through Nevada, and into Utah before reaching Arizona on the third day of the Winter Road Trip.

Our destination was Prescott Arizona’s Hassayampa Inn – the old charmer that we’d been smitten with since we walked through it more than a year ago.  Luckily, The Scout found a Saturday night $129 rate (free parking and Internet) which assured us we’d be spending our last night on the road here.



The 78-room, four-story hotel, at the time it opened in 1927 was one of the few hotels in the country to begin as a public institution – more than 400 stockholders had purchased shares of stock at $1 per share to fund its construction and furnishings.



Back then, bathrooms were down the hall, but a multi-million restoration in 1985 resulted in numerous modern conveniences, including en suite facilities in the now-67-room hotel but didn’t take away the old-time charm of staying in them.

It also sported the town’s only elevator – which is still in use but operated by hotel staff.

Once the cage rattled itself closed around us in the 1927 vintage elevator and we took off with a jerk, I felt much better having someone who knew what they were doing at those controls. Although that red phone. . .hmmm, wonder what it was used for?

The hotel is in the heart of this university town, some 90 minutes north of Phoenix. It’s name is the same as the  Hassayampa (haw –saw-yahm-paw) River, just north of town. It is an Apache word for “the river that loses itself” or “the upside down river.” The 100 mile river sinks below the surface only to appear a bit further away.


Back in its heyday Will Rogers, Clark Gable and General Blackjack Pershing were among its guests. In recent years Tom Selleck, Joan Rivers, Alec Baldwin, The Beach Boys and George W. Bush have been on its ‘who’s who’ list.

They’ve undoubtedly admired the Talavera tile fireplace, the etched glass, the hand-painted ceiling, the leather couches and Castilian walnut furniture just as we do each time we entered the lobby.


At the time the Inn opened it was heralded as the grand jewel of Prescott.

We think it’s still quite a gem!


If You Go:

Hassayampa Inn, 122 E. Gurley St., Prescott, AZ 86301, 800-322-1927, www.hassayampainn.com

Thanks for visiting this Travel Tuesday – hope you’ll come back regularly! On Thursday we’ll step back from the road trip and reveal the identify of the guest chef on our fall Celebrity Silhouette cruise. . .you’ll never guess who it was!

On a Long, Lonesome Highway: To Stop or Not?

The High Plains Drifters left Jackpot, Nevada in the nippy early morning hours on Day 2 of our winter road trip through the Southwest. It was to be another day of traveling over long, lonesome highways as we crossed this state best known for the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas. 



But away from Sin City there’s simply land; lots and lots of land.  One AAA Guidebook says of Nevada road trips, that you will either see miles of nothing or miles of everything – it’s all in your attitude. The first time we drove through the state, I’ll admit I thought it was the most God forsaken place I’d ever seen. . . it’s captured me now – this high desert landscape is lovely and lonesome.



We reached Ely, Nevada (a place deserving of its own post soon) by noon; a short break for lunch and we were back in the car en route to Utah, where we’d spend the night in St. George.


We passed a road sign that warned again picking up hitchhikers because there was a prison out there somewhere in the vast wilderness.  More miles and minutes ticked away and we were entertained by views of Wheeler Peak, 13,032 elevation, pictured above.  Our route looped around this stunning peak (there’s a 12-mile scenic drive that takes you to the 10,000 foot level on the flank of the Peak, which would have been spectacular, I’m sure) but once around the Peak our road again became. . .

. . .the long ribbon of empty highway. A place so remote that neither  ‘dumb’ or ‘smart’ phones work. They whirl endlessly searching for service. 

Joel, after some time and many miles, asked if I could recall the last time we had passed a car. Hmmmm, one, two hours?

He’d no more than asked the question when in the distance we saw a car pulled off to the opposite side of the road.  A man started waving his arm to flag us down, a woman stood by the SUV with its engine hood raised. . .


To stop or not to stop? 

Joel slowed, crossed the road to where the man was standing but kept our car in gear, foot on the brake.   Turns out this 40-something-year-old couple, who lived in a town a hundred miles away, were on a day’s outing to go ‘prospecting’ in the hills when their car broke down.  They couldn’t call for help – no cell phone service. It was too far to walk.  They’d tried flagging down the  few cars that had passed (obviously long before we arrived) but as the man said, “You know how it is. In this day and age, they don’t stop.”

I can’t tell you how profoundly grateful they were that we had pulled over.

We took all their information (their GPS, by the way, showed them on the wrong highway – luckily our old ‘paper map in the lap’ showed the road we were all on).  It was many miles down the road before we reached a place we could call 9-1-1. The dispatcher assured us he’d ‘get someone right out there’.  We suspect he did!

How sad, that we actually have to think twice about stopping to help someone these days. On this Travel Tip Tuesday, we ask the question:  To stop or not to stop?  What would you have done?

Travel Tip Tuesday: Surprises and Savings in Amsterdam

We had an overnight stay in Amsterdam prompted by airline connections on our return from Italy. And, as once before, within hours of arriving were scolding ourselves for not allowing more time than the-less-than-24-hour ‘dash and glance’ we'd allowed ourselves.



But one reason we’ve shied away from extended stays in this picturesque place is that its hotels are expensive. For week’s prior to our arrival The Scout searched hotel booking sites and found triple-digit prices.

HOTEL TIP: We finally used Hotwire, the site that allows you to book a hotel for a significantly discounted price; you’ll select it by its general location, price and star-rating but you won’t know the exact hotel until your credit card has been charged.

Our travel friends, Mary and Greg, have sung its praises for some time and we’d tried it once before – at their suggestion -- and were pleased with the results. This time was no exception.

We selected a four-star hotel within the geographical area of the train station and the city’s famous, Dam Square. . .



What we got was a treasure! We stayed in the  NH Doelen Hotel, the city’s oldest hotel sitting on the banks of the Amstel River in the heart of its historic district. Its who’s-who guests have included Queen Victoria, the Beatles and Rembrandt, the latter who  painted his famous, “Night Watch” here.



We were within easy walking distance of Rembrandt Square, the Jewish Historical Museum and the colorful flower market. Our room, while not overlooking the river, was spacious and the bed comfortable. Free WI-FI was provided, although despite my best attempts we couldn’t connect to it from our room .



GETTING AROUND:  We’d been ‘taken’ by the taxi that brought us to the hotel; the driver of the small van charged the two of us (we learned too-late) a four-person 19.5 euro rate for the short drive.  So, the next morning the hotel folks called a driver they use:

Enter Maarten de Grunt, in his Mercedes. He whisked us to the station (pointing out sites along the way – he spoke perfect English) and dropped us at the entry nearest the tracks – a real plus in this rain-drenched city.  The cost?  9.8 euro, half the prior day’s toll.

So good was Maarten, that we plan to contact him prior to our next stop in Amsterdam so that we can use his services during our stay.  For that matter I wanted to tell all of you about him!   Once you let him know your arrival time by sending an email or making an on-line reservation,  he’ll monitor your flight and be waiting  (whether it be the train station or the airport). Maarten is also available for full blown tours.

If  You Go:

Ground Transportation: Maarten de Grunt, owner ‘De grunt personenvervoer’, email: m.grunt@chello.nl, phone: 0031 6 43259424, website: www.degruntpersonenvervoer.nl

Hotel NH Doelen, www.nh-hotels.nl, location Nieuwe Doelenstraat, 26.

Hotwire, www.hotwire.com (Our room cost about $150US ; booked directly with the hotel it would have cost about $225).

Thanks for stopping by today, hope to see you back here again on Travel Photo Thursday; the day armchair travel takes flight in the blogosphere.

Living in Italy: Rethinking Life’s Routines

We ‘lived’ in Italy for a very short time this fall. Staying in apartments that allowed us to play house, we were able, for a brief moment, to experience what expats must when dealing with new cultures, customs and behaviors. 

We sampled this travel style last year in Spain and were eager to try it again in Italy.

Two apartments. Two cities. Two completely different experiences.  But each provided us an opportunity to re-think the routines of daily life.

Our first home was a warm, cozy place in Bologna,  where the owners had anticipated  our every need, right down to scotch tape and scissors.

 
Our Venice home was  functional, but lacked the warmth and charm of the first place. You can probably tell that  from the photos.

If you’ve ever lived – for however long – in another country you know that everything about daily life is sort of the same as the one you live back home, yet different.

Different, in visible ways,  like water-craft ambulances in Venice and gas stations to fill up your boat (photo below). 

Tasks as simple as turning on the dishwasher, washing machine, adjusting the heat, buying groceries and cooking, finding the ATM machine, even locking the front door were just enough different to require some thought about how to accomplish them.


Our first night in Venice, a bit tired, somewhat disappointed in the apartment and short-tempered, we thought we’d locked ourselves out of it because no amount of turning the key opened the door.
Why hadn’t we tried the lock before both of us stepped outside and shut it? How could  it be so impossibly difficult? we grumbled.

You  are probably thinking, wouldn’t it be much easier to stay in a hotel? For that matter, it would be easiest to stay home where those day-to-day routines require no thought whatsoever. 

But one of the great things about this type of travel is that it forces us to sometimes live on the edge of comfortable. 

It makes unlocking the front door a high-five accomplishment and  turns fresh bread, cheese, olives and a glass of wine – eaten ‘at home’ – into a feast.

It forces us to turn off life’s auto-pilot and rethink the art of living. It also makes us grateful for the familiarity of the home we return to after each trip. 

It’s a great way to take travel to a new level. We’ll do it again and would recommend it, but with reservations because it isn’t for everyone. 



On this Travel Tip Tuesday:  We recommend that before before booking such a stay, you ask yourself:
1.  Am I comfortable not having a front desk resource available 24/7 to answer questions, provide maps, and solve problems?  Can I figure out how to call for emergency response (medical, fire, police) if the need were to arise?
2.  Do I want to go grocery shopping and prepare some meals at home?
3.  Have I researched the area and the user reviews of the place enough to feel comfortable, if not eager, to book it?
4.  In case I find myself in a neighborhood where English isn’t prevalent, do I speak enough of the language to get by?
5.  Am I ready to live on the edge of comfortable and rethink the routines?

If You Go:  We booked both our apartments through the on line rental agency, Vacations to Go.  Another similar site is HomeAway.  Both these websites offer user reviews, but we often check TripAdvisor as well.

Have you ever traveled on the edge of comfortable? If so, where was it that made you re-think routine?

KLM Airlines: Flying Up Front Like Royalty

It isn't often that we get to experience ‘how the other half flies’– those front-end-of-the-plane folks who recline in spacious seats behind that curtain enjoying all the treats afforded them there.

We are most-often among those in the cramped economy section  at the back of the plane eating the complementary snack pack of six soy nuts and coffee. . .and earning frequent flier miles.

On our recent trip though The Scout is to be commended for using a pile of those frequent flyer air miles earned in the back of Alaska Airlines planes to get us to Europe in style.

We flew Business Class from Vancouver, B.C. to Amsterdam and back from Venice on KLM, Royal Dutch Airline. 

Since it is Travel Tip Tuesday, I thought I’d give you a look what you can get for those frequent flier miles you’ve been accumulating:


The luxuries of ‘front-end’ travel begins long before boarding the plane in special lounges in some secluded area of the airport where only those ‘invited’ guests are admitted. The invitation is a Business or First-class boarding pass.

In Amsterdam (picture above) we could have consumed any number of beverages from hard liquor and wine to orange juice and coffee while awaiting our flight.  It was serve-yourself  sandwich makings, a chunky tomato soup, beet root salad and any number of pastries and snacks.
 
But that was just the prelude to the flight:

We learned from our multi-page printed menu that KLM was in the midst of its Third Annual “From Holland Food and Wine Festival” celebrated on board during October and November. As the name implies, it’s designed to showcase Dutch products, dishes and traditions. (Now why couldn’t other airlines do that? Maybe they do and we just don’t get to see it in the back, right?)

These were the first of several glasses of Billecart- Salmon champagne that I sipped during the near 10 hour flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver. (Okay, so it’s not from Holland, but it is my all-time favorite bubbly; its cost keeps me from having it too often on the ground.)


We sipped the bubbly while adjusting our seats - an activity that in itself could keep you entertained for a few hours.
(That M in the circle was to activate the massage feature, by the way.) 










So back to the Food and Wine Festival. . .



The starter course was “A baton of braised veal enhanced by beetroot with cumin and a Hollandaise piccalilli cream” (the little blue clogs to the left were salt and pepper shakers) and that was followed by:



The entree:   A mouth-watering MRIJ beef tartlet ‘complemented by jus with VOC spices, mash of Willem van Orange potato and red cabbage with diced apple.”

We opted out of the desserts (although I had to try a Belgian chocolate from the box of temptations offered by the flight attendant after dessert). 

Just before arriving in Vancouver, BC we had our final (oink!) “Light Meal” service: “Eigenheimer potato salad with shrimps served with salmon garnished with herring caviar and trout Hollandaise mousse” in the small dish at the top.

The hot dish is a “Zeeland-fish platter with fillet of plaice and haddock complemented by creamy dill sauce, tomato compote and green marrow peas with onions and carrots.”

In between the eats Joel napped, using  his blanket for an eye shade instead of the one in a kit given us at the start of the flight. It included socks, lotions, lip balm, tooth paste and brush,and ear plugs (mine is the pink bag):

I also reclined but opted to watch one of a dozen movies offered but I also made periodic checks of our position on my individual screen (note, I’d switched to water):

By this point in the flight though I was getting excited for the special treat that I had learned on our flight to Amsterdam would be coming. . .KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines has a tradition for ‘front end’ guests. . . you’ll have to tune in later this week to find out what it was that had me so excited.

How we did it: It required 100,000 Alaska Air miles per person to fly from Seattle (via Alaska Air/Horizon) to Vancouver, BC; then Amsterdam on KLM. [We were unable to connect using FF seats to Milan so we booked Easy Jet, Europe’s low-cost airline for that segment – $100 each, with all charges]. We flew Business Class from Venice to Vancouver, B.C. 

We paid only a couple hundred dollars in taxes, baggage charges, and fees for tickets that  cost in the $5,000 per person range.

Later this week  I’ll tell you about the treat and Joel will have some tips for booking frequent flier seats. Hope to see you then!

Travel Tip Tuesday: Ridin’ the Rails for Free!

Mary and her husband, who live in south central Washington State, will be traveling round-trip to Chicago aboard Amtrak this fall – on free tickets – thanks to Amtrak’s Rewards Program and a Chase credit card offer she received.

That is a savings of $636.

The Amtrak card – which doesn’t have an annual fee -- works much like those cards that offer airline points.  Mary received 16,000 points from Amtrak for joining the rewards program and another 16,000 from Chase for signing up for the card. The Chase points were added to her Amtrak account as soon as she made a purchase using that card.  It took between a month and six weeks for the points to be posted.

Once they appeared in her account, she put in their travel dates and destination ‘hoping to get a few dollars off the cost of the tickets’. Instead, she found that the amount of points required for the trip was 32,000. Her points paid for the trip. She’s booked it!

“I already had booked a neat brownstone in the Lincoln Park area and will use the card to pay for it and hopefully accrue some more points by next May, when we plan to take Amtrak to Carmel,” she wrote.

Mary’s note came right before news of the latest round of price increases on airline tickets. If you’re tired of airports and want to give Amtrak a try, you might want to also check out the Amtrak credit card site. (Offers can change so you may not find the same deal that Mary got.)

If you missed last week’s money-saving Travel Tip,’ click here to read it.

If you’ve got a tip – place to stay, a good deal, a way to save travel dollars – send us an email to travelnwrite@msn.com Be sure to include details and we’ll use it in a future Travel Tip Tuesdays! 

And, if this is your first visit to TravelnWrite, welcome! Hope you’ll return soon or better yet, sign up to have TravelnWrite posts delivered to your inbox.